My dream beaded skirt

My cell phone beeped. Hi Twee. There’s a US embassy shoppers day tomorrow at World Trade Center. It was from my student Ron, responding to my request for information on when the American Women’s Bazaar would be. See, I had fallen in love with a skirt at that bazaar a long time ago, maybe two years ago, and still I wanted it. It is fully beaded denim and it comes in sizes large enough for me. Every time I went I looked but since I had not made up my mind, I did not even try one on. Now I really want it.

The next day was a Saturday, my food marketing day. I set that aside and decided to go to the World Trade Center instead. True, this was not the American Women’s Bazaar that I usually went to but hey, it must be run by American women. How many of them are there in this country? They must have the same people shopping and so therefore they must have the same sellers selling.

I got there early with enough money to buy myself a beautiful beaded skirt. Lined up with exact change for admission, I was summoned over because the people ahead of me had no change. Got my hand stamped quickly and I went into the hall. Immediately I felt it wasn’t the same bazaar. But anyway. . .

There were so many quilts so beautifully done. One lotus quilt caught my fancy, but what would I do with a quilt? I have no room for it, no funds for it, no weather for it. This is the Philippines. It swelters here. What use would we have for quilts?

In between the quilt stores there were lots of jewelry stores. Every single kind of jewelry you might be looking for, they had. Pearls. You want fake or real? Small or large? Brown or pink? How about gray or green? They had them there — everything from glass to crystal to semi-precious, from plain silver to elaborate stones, from jewelry for wearing to jewelry on bags. You want it on headbands? For your wrists? How about anklets? They have everything there. You want colored glass stones to hang at your window? How about little stones on your bookmarks? You will find them there. Only you’d better bring a lot of money.

Slippers! I need slippers. There they were in all shapes and sizes. I saw raffia slippers with rubber heels and tried them on. Looked good. How much? The person I asked looked at someone else. “P350,” the person she looked at, who looked and spoke like a lesbian, said to me. She turned me off. “How expensive,” I said. “On the other side they have the same with beads for P240. I’m going back there.”  My God, it was like shopping at 168, only more expensive.

So I went back to the extreme left side and bought a beaded green silk kimono to wear to a wedding I was invited to. Then I bought two pairs of slippers at P240, two blouses from Indonesia, and a hairband with two butterflies for P100.

“Do you know if the woman who sells beaded denim skirts still sells them here?” I asked Mylene, my favorite jeweler. She sells my kind of jewelry at all the bazaars I go to. I love her stuff because it is funky, fairly inexpensive and very chic. Whenever I wear one of the pieces I have bought from her, people sigh.

 “I think I know whom you mean. Yes, Sally, I think that’s her name but I don’t think she’s here today. She gets the skirts from Vietnam, I think. I have not seen her today but this is not the American Women’s Bazaar, so they have different sellers. Come back on October 1. Maybe she’ll be here then.”

I sigh. I will return on October 1 to invest in a beaded skirt that I have wanted for years and that I will wear until I die.  Okay.

It’s funny how our shopping habits change as we grow older. We buy fewer items and they are more basic. We think about what we want and look for them precisely, enjoying most of what we see but not enough to buy them. Sometimes it takes us years to make a decision but when we decide — as I have over the beaded skirt — we don’t care how much time or effort or money we invest in it. We simply must have it.

So I shall return hoping to find this genre of beaded skirts I started to admire — was it two or three years ago? When I find it I will try some on until I find the one that suits me. Then I will buy it and feel like a classic figure on the ramp. I will wear it. I will sparkle. I will have the fully beaded skirt of my dreams at last.

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